Large-scale, network-based computing represents a paradigm shift from traditional client-server computing relationships. With large-scale, network-based service platforms (e.g., data centers), customers are able to leverage shared resources on demand by renting resources that are owned by third parties and that reside “in the cloud.” With these resources, users of the platform are able to launch and maintain large applications without actually owning or servicing the underlying infrastructure necessary for these applications. As a result, network-based service platforms have expanded the class of individuals and companies able to effectively compete in the realm of computing applications.
Renting computing resources that reside “in the cloud” comes at a cost to the customer. Accordingly, a customer may receive a bill at the end of a billing period that summarizes their metered usage and/or cost of operating the customer's resources over the billing period. However, the cost is often billed at the customer level and does not break down the cost below the customer level, such as across responsible individuals or groups of individuals (e.g., departments) that make up the customer's organization. Customers have implemented manual tagging strategies and/or ad hoc scripts to split the resource usage and/or cost of their bill across responsible entities, but this leads to computing resources being “untagged” indefinitely (e.g., users forget to tag their resources), or at least for a period of time immediately following the creation of the computing resource. This, in turn, results in an inability to effectively allocate the usage and/or cost of operating computing resources to responsible entities that created them.